Tyson Fury calls for Christmas clash with Oleksandr Usyk for undisputed heavyweight championship
Tyson Fury has confirmed he will be ready to fight Oleksandr Usyk in an undisputed heavyweight championship match on December 23.
It’s a quick turnaround for Fury, who has his first bout of 2023 on Saturday, albeit against mixed martial artist, former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou.
But he is confident he can take on Usyk for the unified WBC, WBA, WBO and IBF heavyweight titles two days before Christmas.
“We have signed the contracts,” Fury said Air sports. “December 23rd, that’s right there? It’s only eight weeks away from Saturday. Why not?
“I haven’t even fought this year, so it would be great to get two before the end of the year. Double payday,” he continued. “There will be a nice big turkey in the Fury household this Christmas.
“If it happens on December 23, I’ll play that song Driving Home For Christmas, I won’t land back in the UK until Christmas Eve and late Christmas Eve and if we get delayed I’ll spend Christmas with the reindeer at the airport!”
Boxing needs to change
The match with Usyk has been a long time in the making and Fury has made no secret of his frustration with boxing.
“It’s rare that two undefeated champions fight each other and when they do, it’s every 10 years,” he said. “(Usually) you know who’s going to win before they’ve even fought. It’s pointless… I’m a boxing fan. I’ve been a boxing fan all my life and even I’m pretty sick of it.”
He explained: “So something has to change. In UFC, the best, the best, the contenders fight – No. 10 will fight No. 11, No. 4 will fight No. 3 and No. 1 will fight No. 2 fighting.
Tyson Fury is frustrated by how long it takes to fight boxing’s best
“I don’t think boxing has ever been like that. Sometimes you get the best fights, but there’s always been a build-up of cannon fodder throughout their career. Like in their first 20 fights, they didn’t do that.” fight anyone. That kind of behavior. They don’t do that in the UFC. They throw them in right away.
“If you’re good enough, you’re good enough and if you’re not, go home.
“If you’re a champion and you’re fighting a defense or someone in the top ten, that’s fine. I’m talking about the basics. I’m talking about the way it’s built. If a champion is fighting the number one “As third in the rankings, there is nothing wrong with that.”
Fury does believe that his sport will change. “I think it definitely needs to change and I think it will,” he said. “There are some big power moves happening in boxing and it all stems from Saudi Arabia. I think there will be a huge change in the coming months. There will be a power change in boxing and it will be for the better.
“So something has to change and I think we’ll see that soon.”
‘The official worst man in the world’
It is natural for Fury to think that when his next bout is a lucrative ten-round non-title boxing match with Ngannou in Saudi Arabia.
Should he beat Ngannou, he says: “I will be the worst man in the world. Not only will I be the heavyweight champion of the world, but I will also be the official worst man in the world.”
“The battle for the worst, it’s in the title!”
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No pension plan
Although Fury acknowledges that he is “at the end of my career, I’m 35 years old and I’m reaping the benefits of that”, the reigning WBC champion has no plans to stop boxing.
He wants to keep fighting and keep training. “For a man in the middle of his life, a man who has ambition, a man who wants to do something, I really don’t believe that luck exists. I think it’s a byproduct of something else,” he said.
“Does happiness really exist for me in my life right now or is it a byproduct of me going to work every day and achieving goals? Does that bring me joy? Or is there such a thing as happiness?”
“I don’t know, for me I don’t think it exists.”
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Fury continued: “I don’t have an exit strategy because apart from boxing I have nothing I’m interested in. You could give me a trillion dollars today and it wouldn’t improve my life at all. doesn’t make any difference.
“I guess I’m just a simple guy who just likes to do what I do: take the kids to school, go to the gym, walk the dogs, clean up and that’s it, repeat.
“Groundhog Day, that’s my life, I live in Morecombe Bay and do the same things year in and year out. That’s probably why I’m so successful at what I do.”
Live only for today
That’s a guide to life for Tyson Fury, one of the most volatile characters in the world of professional boxing.
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“I never look to the future. That’s the golden rule. The future is unimportant to me because I only live for today,” he said.
“I don’t even live for the next four, five days in advance. I only live one day at a time because that’s the only way I know how. The history of yesterday, tomorrow is a mystery, today is for living.
“Tomorrow will be what it will be. Tomorrow will bring what it will bring, but as for today, that’s all I’m focusing on.
‘If you can live your life like that, which 99.99 percent of people can’t, then you’ve cracked it.
“That’s why I cracked it.”